BELLEVUE, WA - Today's arrest of Illinois State Sen. Donne Trotter by authorities at O'Hare International Airport for having a gun in his carry-on bag is a revealing look at the hypocrisy of anti-gunners, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Trotter was arrested at a security checkpoint early this morning. A candidate for the 2nd Congressional District seat vacated recently by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Trotter had a .25-caliber Beretta semiautomatic pistol in his bag. The Chicago Tribune said Trotter told police he worked late last night as a security guard and didn't realize the pistol was in his bag.

"Trotter is a South Side Democrat and he was a leader in the move to ban so-called 'assault weapons' during his first term as a state representative," noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "A man who favored banning firearms for thousands of his fellow Illinois residents shouldn't even have a gun, much less be packing one illegally into an airport."

Trotter has reportedly been charged with one count of attempting to board an airplane with a weapon, which is a Class 4 felony.

"Senator Trotter, by his own action, has demonstrated the monumental hypocrisy of gun control advocates who try to disarm average citizens while reserving the right to bear arms for themselves alone," Gottlieb observed. "He should not even be serving in the state legislature, much less be running for a seat in Congress, which already has its share of gun prohibition hypocrites.

"Today's incident underscores just how pathetic the anti-gun philosophy has gotten," he concluded. "Perhaps now he will realize how other citizens feel when they run afoul of some anti-gun law or regulation. He should apologize to every gun owner in Illinois."

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.